The Race Toward Autonomous Driving

As you may remember, I wrote a few weeks back about Tesla’s new semi-self-driving feature that was coming out as an update. The system has now hit the market and has been a resounding success, so much so that its existence is beginning to bring fear to other automotive and technology corporations, as they realize that with this substantial head start, Tesla could leave them all in the proverbial dust, beating them to the punch with the first fully automated vehicles. One of the key points of Tesla’s strategy, however, is the idea that their self-pilot system is set up to be an evolutionary system, one which starts with some simple driver’s aid functions and a handful of situations in which the car can pilot itself, but will learn over time how to conduct itself in more demanding traffic scenarios. This means that Tesla’s model will take years to develop and even longer to go onto the public market. What the automakers and technology companies who are trying to stick their hands in the cookie jar that is automated driving should fear, in contrast, is a revolution.

                 

                         Image by Sam Churchill in conjunction with Google

YahooFinancial holds that this revolution is well on its way at the Google Corporation. The company is spending at a current rate of about $30 million dollars per year to fund their project which, rather than being on the market in a half-developed system a la Tesla, is in specialized test vehichles and is slowly learning not only the simple maneuvers that Teslas are just now catching onto, but the more advanced driving situations like adverse weather conditions, road construction, and other non-commonplace situations. Perhaps most importantly, Google has a massive network of previously gathered information from its other projects, such as research and development into robotic technologies and the massive Google Earth program, which is a distinct advantage against automakers who have to either develop these systems from scratch or, more often than not, develop a partnership with another company who does specialize in technological research.

With this, the race to produce the first publicly available self-driving automobile is on, and the question we find ourselves asking is this: Who will win, the makers of automobiles or of technology?